Dive Brief:
- Carnegie Mellon University is partnering with Regional Industrial Development Corporation to build a space for the public-private nonprofit Advanced Manufacturing Institute (founded by CMU but now acting independently) within the metal frame of an abandoned steel mill in Pittsburgh — and the facility will in turn help CMU integrate new technologies from its Manufacturing Futures Initiative (MFI) into industry.
- The initiative aims to leverage technologies like artificial intelligence, autonomy and 3-D printing to make industrial robotics more accessible and cheaper for all types of businesses, with the benefit of creating apprenticeship opportunities for CMU's students, according to a press release from the institution.
- Recognizing that industry is becoming increasingly automated, ARM and MFI focus on workforce development "ensuring that workers, throughout their careers, can get the training needed to benefit from advanced technologies adopted by industrial manufacturers."
Dive Insight:
The rise in automation means that graduates must have the ability to work with, as well as communicate, advanced manufacturing techniques. In other words, rather than being able to put an item on the conveyer belt, they must know how the conveyer belt works and be able to discuss a solution with a team of workers. This means that to better prepare students for the future of work, higher education institutions must build both the transferable humanities skills of collaboration and communication alongside the specific technical skills that will be valuable as more industry becomes automated.
Initiatives like CMU's advanced manufacturing programs, which both build out industry and prepare workers to do the jobs of the future, ensure that not all occupations are simply replaced by robots, but that new fields are created that require the expertise of students coming from two-to-four-year institutions, and also maintain the value and relevancy of the college degree. Such initiatives are particularly necessary now as automation has already taken over several industries, and researchers estimate that "46 percent of all of the time for which people are now paid in the U.S. economy is spent in activities that could be automated based on currently available technology."